Not Quite Nine Months
by insaneantics21
Summary: Pregnancy is a little different than Brittany thought it would be. *Puppy-verse #11*


Back to the Puppy-verse!

Preceded by:  
Puppy | My Girl(s) | Perfection | Decisions | Baby Love  
Baby Love 2 | Slushies: The Next Generation | Little Gold Stars  
Change | Baby Just Say Yes

* * *

**--January 2023--**  
"It worked," Brittany said with a smile. "The thing at the doctor to make the baby."

Santana rolled over and pulled the blankets up around her bare chest. She snuggled into Brittany's side and shook her head.

"You haven't even taken a pregnancy test, B," the Latina murmured.

"I know." Brittany put her hands low on her stomach. "But I can feel it."

It turns out, Brittany was right. An hour later she had managed to drag Santana out of bed long enough to walk a block to the nearest drugstore to get a test. The little pink plus sign showed up bright and vibrant. Brittany jumped up and down and squealed, Santana sat on the edge of the bathtub and stared at the stick with her mouth gaped open.

"B…how did you know?"

"I told you, silly," the blonde said, kneeling down in front of her wife. "I could feel it. Not like, in my stomach but you know. Like how Rachel says she has that ESPN. It's like that."

"ESP, babe."

"Okay. I'm going to call my parents!"

Santana nodded and Brittany hopped up off the floor to find her phone. Her parents were ecstatic, her mother started rambling in Dutch and she could hear her father's hearty laugh in the background and he was shouting about his first grandchild and Brittany never felt happier. She argued with Santana about telling Quinn and Rachel and because it's Brittany, she won.

**--February--**  
Brittany called Quinn on more than one occasion to find out exactly why they called it morning sickness. The blonde had morning sickness, alright, and afternoon sickness and evening sickness. Valentine's Day was out of the question because Brittany was having horrible nausea that day and almost puked down Santana's back when she was asked where she wanted to go to dinner.

**--March--**  
It was discovered on St. Patrick's Day that things that go down green come back up the exact same way. Brittany refused to eat pancakes ever again.

One thing Brittany absolutely hated about the pregnancy was the nightmares. She would wake up panting and sweating after having dreamt that she was in a park with her baby and then suddenly it was gone, someone had snatched it up. Santana would hold her and rock her back and forth until she calmed down and went back to sleep.

**--April--**  
Brittany was ecstatic when she outgrew her jeans. She generally wore sweatpants at her dance studio but when she couldn't fit into her few pairs of jeans anymore she was actually happy about it. She took every chance she could to look at her little baby bump in the mirror and Santana was very protective of it. The Latina walked ahead of her when they were in crowded places and shoved people out of the way. She slept with one hand on the small bump and constantly pressed kisses to it when she and Brittany were cuddled together. She went on a shopping spree when Old Navy had a clearance sale and bought her wife twenty new pairs of sweatpants, eight of them had duck prints. The last time Brittany remembered Santana being so protective of anything or anyone was when Brittany had to wear headgear for three months in the sixth grade and after Santana beat up Puck for looking at her weird no one ever said anything.

**--May--**  
Brittany's cravings were insatiable. Rachel gave Santana a map of every single restaurant that Quinn craved when she was pregnant with the twins, color coded by food nationality. Even though the Latina would never admit it, she loved Rachel for that because it saved her sanity.

This month it was Greek food, especially gyros. The blonde was sitting at a small table in her dance studio enjoying her second one of her lunch hour when she felt it. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked down at her ballooning stomach. For the first time she actually dropped food to focus on something else. She put her hand over her stomach and felt it again. Brittany searched for her cell phone, huge smile on her face, and dialed Santana's work number.

"Santana Lopez," the Latina answered.

"Come to the studio! I need you to come!"

"What? What is it, B? Is there something wrong?"

"I need you to come here, please? Nothing's wrong but I want to see you."

"B we did it like twice this morning, can't it wait until tonight?"

"It's not _that_! Okay well, maybe a little, but can you please come?"

There was a shuffling of papers and Santana sighed. "I'll be there in a little bit."

Brittany squealed and hung up the phone. She went back to focusing on her stomach and taking bites of her sandwich in between rubbing and talking to the baby bump. Santana stepped into the studio half an hour later and pulled off her jacket and started unbuttoning her shirt.

"We have to make this quick, B. I've got a meeting this afternoon."

"No!" Brittany said. She jumped up and sprinted to Santana and grabbed the Latina's hands. She put them on her stomach and Santana arched her eyebrow.

"What are you…"

"Shh!"

They waited for a few seconds and then it happened. Santana jumped back and Brittany squealed.

"Did you feel it?!"

Santana put her hands back on Brittany's stomach and stared down at it. The baby kicked again and again and Brittany pulled Santana in for a kiss.

"That's amazing," Santana murmured against Brittany's lips.

Brittany glanced over at her sandwich, Santana's hands were still on her stomach and she was staring down at it and smiling at every flutter and kick.

"San…I kind of want my sandwich."

One of Santana's hands moved up from Brittany's stomach to wrap around her neck and Santana grinned and started nibbling at the pale skin on the other side. "You sure you don't want me?"

Brittany licked her lips, still staring at the sandwich. "Uh…"

"Oh my God, you seriously want the sandwich instead of sex? The one time I'm really in the mood and you want to scarf down a sandwich."

"It's a _really_ good sandwich."

"Can I have a bite then? I don't know if I'll have time to eat."

Brittany sprinted back to her food and covered it protectively. "No," she growled. "My sandwich."

Santana held up her hands and took a few steps backward. "Okay, I'll pick something up on the way back to the office. Don't hurt me."

Brittany smiled at her with a mouth full of food and Santana moved to her and kissed the top of the blonde's head.

"Do you want me to bring you some more after I get off work?"

Brittany nodded and took a long drink of water from her water bottle. "Extra onions. And we're out of pickles at home."

"Onions, pickles, gum. Got it."

"Gum?"

"You're going to need it, babe."

**--June--**  
Brittany curled up on the couch, Duck next to her with her head in Brittany's lap, with her latest pregnancy book. She'd been reading them almost non-stop since the day the pink plus sign showed up. Most of them were Quinn and Rachel's and Brittany always had to keep her laptop next to her with Google open to figure out some of the words that confused her. Today she came across one such word when reading about the birthing process in detail for the first time rather than what to expect in the pregnancy. Brittany grabbed her laptop and punched the word into Google. She didn't remember anything after shrieking and shutting the computer then dropping it to the floor.

"Hey, B, I brought home some Thai…B are you okay?" Santana dropped the bags of food on the kitchen table and quickly made her way to the couch. Duck quickly moved out of the way and curled up on the floor. Santana carefully sat down and looked at her wife with great concern.

Brittany was sitting straight up on the couch, eyes fixed forward and jaw slightly open.

"S, I don't want to have a baby!"

Santana blinked. "Babe it's kind of too late for that. Tell me what's wrong."

Brittany reached forward and picked up the book she'd been reading and pointed to the word she had to look up.

"Do you know what that word means?!" the blonde shrieked. "Epist…epitos…episto…"

"Episiotomy?"

"Yes! I don't want it!"

Santana shut the book and wrapped her arm around Brittany's shoulders. The blonde just sat there and blinked.

"B, listen, don't worry about it okay? I…I mean they only do it if they really have to and you're gonna have drugs and stuff to numb everything down there so…"

Brittany burst into tears. "No! Drugs are bad!" she wailed. She didn't want her baby born addicted to some horrible drug like they'd droned on about in high school. Santana groaned and rubbed her back and pressed kisses to her cheeks.

"No, no…these aren't those kinds of drugs B…God I don't know… Okay, B, just listen…The medicine they give you won't hurt the baby, okay?"

"B-but what if they d-do? I d-don't want him born like those b-babies they talked about in school."

"B, they use those drugs all the time. It's…Wait, did you just say 'him'?"

Brittany sniffled. She hadn't told Santana that instinct told her she was carrying a son, mostly because she knew Santana would tell her she couldn't quite possibly know. But Brittany knew. She knew right after she hit the beginning of her second trimester. She'd even gone as far as to secretly buy a blue outfit for the baby to come home in.

Brittany nodded.

"How do you know? The doctor never said anything."

"I just know," she whispered. "Like I knew when I was pregnant."

"Okay, B. Whatever you say."

The smell of the Thai food was wafting through the air, Brittany caught a whiff and smiled. She leapt off the couch, Santana followed close behind.

"You got chicken curry!" she shrieked before she opened the containers. She could smell it. And it smelled so, so good. She dug through the containers and found the chicken. The horrible word and drugs were forgotten in place of delicious food and cuddles with her wife.

**--July--**  
As Brittany entered her final trimester she started making Santana go to birthing classes with her. They got papers to set up their birth plan and she tried really hard not to freak out or cry when that horrible, awful word came up again. She was completely unaware that there were about a hundred different options for where and how to have her baby. She thought people just went into hospitals, had the baby and came home. Different speakers presented options like home birth, water birth in a birthing center, water birth in a pool at home, and they even watched a documentary about a woman who went off to a remote beach to have her baby.

"I just want to go to the hospital," Brittany whispered to Santana while a woman who looked like she jumped out of Woodstock talked about the advantages of a home birth with no drugs and things like prayer beads and hypnosis and chanting.

"Totally," Santana whispered back. "The kid can learn how to swim like everyone else, it doesn't need to be born in a freakin' pool."

In the end it was decided that Brittany would go to the hospital (the woman from Woodstock looked highly offended when Santana told her to go hug a tree after she'd tried to give them a handout about water nymphs) and she was still determined to have a delivery without drugs. Santana was in no position to argue until Rachel gave her a list of websites on information for caring for a broken hand. Santana arched her eyebrow curiously before it hit her that when Allie was born Rachel had shown up to school after that weekend with her left hand in a bright pink cast mumbling about her metacarpals and three clean breaks. Brittany still refused the drugs and Santana started drinking a lot more milk and doing strengthening exercises every day.

**--August--**  
Brittany wandered around her dance studio helping Katie Johnson with her form and giving a nod and a smile to Allie who was doing perfect, as always. When class dismissed Quinn was there with the twins and the other blonde instructed Allie to go pack up her things and she let the twins down to run off some energy.

"How's it going, B?"

Brittany shrugged. "Okay I guess." It wasn't okay. She'd gained twenty-five pounds and even though she knew she would lose it quickly and regain her toned dancer's body she wasn't exactly happy about it. Santana had tried to tell her over and over that she looked beautiful but sometimes Brittany couldn't help but feel gross.

"Hey, B," Quinn tilted Brittany's chin up. "What's wrong?"

"I don't feel pretty anymore," she admitted. Brittany dropped to the chair by her small table and sighed.

"B, come on." Quinn pulled the other chair around to sit in front of her. She looked over at Isabelle and Olivia who were bouncing and rolling on the mats in the corner. "Why not? You're absolutely glowing!"

"I don't feel like I'm glowing. I feel fat."

"Brit, you're pregnant. There's a difference. I fit into my old clothes just fine and I had _twins_. It'll take you a little while but after the baby is born you'll get back into shape and I'll even help you if you want. We can go running together or something. Just stop worrying about it, okay sweetie?"

Brittany nodded and Quinn pulled her in for a hug, she was snapped out of it when one of the twins screamed, Quinn looked over at the mats and groaned.

"Olivia! I told you to stop beating up your sister!" Quinn growled and marched over to the mats. She picked the three year old up off of her twin and carried her under one arm back to the table. "We should get going so these two don't kill each other. You're beautiful, B, just remember that."

Brittany smiled and hugged Quinn then kissed the top of the squirming three-year-old's head that Quinn was still holding on to and bent down to do the same to Isabelle who was hugging onto her mother's leg.

When Brittany got home that night the apartment was dark and Santana wasn't in the kitchen or in the living room but there was a trail of rose petals leading from the front door to their bedroom. Brittany grinned and followed the path into the bedroom, the trail continued to the bathroom door and she stepped into a cloud of steam. Santana greeted her with a kiss.

"Quinn told me you had a rough day, babe," Santana said. "I'm gonna make it all better, okay?"

Brittany grinned. Santana had drawn her a bubble bath with her favorite Mr. Bubble bubble bath in their big bathtub and they settled into it, Brittany leaning back against Santana.

"I should tell you this more often, B," Santana whispered into the blonde's ear. "But you are so, so beautiful. Everything about you is gorgeous. _Especially_ this," Santana ran her hands across Brittany's eight-months pregnant stomach. "It's our _kid_, B. Our baby. And it's amazing that in one month we'll be holding it -"

"Him," Brittany corrected her.

Santana sighed. "Okay, him. We'll be holding him. And you'll still be beautiful. You're _always_ going to be beautiful to me, B. No matter what. You understand?"

Brittany never felt gross again.

**--September 13, 2023--**  
It was three weeks before the due date and Santana had just fallen asleep with her arm draped protectively over Brittany's stomach. The blonde was still awake and was deep in thought. She thought about how in a few week's time she was going to be holding her baby and cooing at him (Santana still told her not to call it a 'him' because they never did find out for sure) and she would finally be a mother, just like she'd always wanted. She thought about how hers and Santana's lives would change and be so much better. She winced when she thought about a time when she didn't know if it was going to happen or not because she'd had a lapse in judgment. She glanced over at the bassinet that was on her side of the bed, ready and waiting for the small bundle of joy. She thought about the irritating indigestion that was keeping her awake and then all of her thoughts were completely wiped out of her head when the mattress was suddenly soaking wet.

"Santana!" Brittany shrieked. The Latina sat up and furrowed her eyebrows. She threw back the blankets and Brittany turned on the lamp and her eyes went wide.

**--19 hours later--**  
"Next time," Brittany mumbled to Santana before she drifted to sleep. "You get to do it."


End file.
